Walking towards the glass, I strike the whip again. They don’t know me, but I can’t risk the picture of what I’m about to do to my mistress…my submissive…my slut.
I close the curtain much to the crowds’ chagrin. They boo. I take a bow and blow a kiss goodbye. “You’ll need to forgive me for what I’m about to do,” I warn, moving closer. “It’s been a while.”
“Months,” she mutters, wiggling in the chair. “I’m so hungry…so, so hungry. Bring it, Sal.”
I curl my finger in the corset strings and pull them loose. It falls like wings off of her sides. I lick my thumb and forefinger before snapping the pads around her nipple and bringing it up. I clip one clamp on and tighten it. I repeat the process with the other one as her eyes shutter closed.
“Tell me you aren’t giving up on Iris.”
“We aren’t discussing my business,” I authoritatively declare, backing away. “Stand up.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“Take off your pants and bend over.”
Taking the paddle, I swing with a backhand hard. She jumps. And I smirk. Game on.
“Stand up straight. Don’t buckle. Cause this is going to hurt like a motherfucker.”
Lashing at her backside, I spare her no sorrow. I offer no pity strikes. I’m angry as hell for the secrets, lies, and betrayal, but I cannot think without the drunken release in this air. I crave power. Sinking into the pulse, I drift to a high like no other. Every lash becomes kinetic, reverberating off of her, and sailing its way back to me.
I’m blistering my mistress’ hide in a dungeon in Boston. It all feels so surreal like I’ve come full circle, but the mind-numbing tilt is coming on strong. The subsequent rotations won’t be nearly as easy.
Adulting is hard.
Intimacy is worse.
Holding my shit together, I cannot let this ever happen again. This is a relapse—a reveling foray into the glimpse of a past where I bid these notions farewell. The popper careens across her back, mangling with the slashes of my victories and paying homage to the losses, as I get lost in the ecstasy of my mind.
My daughter is a loss as I hear her laughing on the playground. I see her running into my arms. We’re spinning as I lift her high to the sky. I put her in the truck. I drive to get her dinner, and by the time we get home, she’s passed out. I carry her upstairs, change her clothes, and tuck her into bed with a kiss.
The things I’ll never know.
Anna is a loss as I see her preparing the beds at Juliet for winter. She scolds me for the length of time between visits because she knows the clock is ticking. I carry her mulch, and her wrinkled hand smooths over mine as I remind her so much of the man she loved. I want her to meet my daughter. I want her to see my wedding. I want to dance with her under a starry sky.
The things I’ll never know.
Iris is a loss as I feel her every minute. I imagine she is here with me. I hear her words. I smell her skin. I taste her lips. I visualize the happily ever after ending I want, but I don’t know if I’ll ever get there. I don’t know if I deserve that much love or if I’ve earned the right to keep her as mine. She is the mysterious calm in my madness and the escape I will never recover from.
The things I’ll never know.
Deacon is my victory.
… And I celebrate that nightly.
Amber is an…epic fucking overdose.
Emily.
Emily.
Emlee.
I startle awake from the indulgence. The red lines maim against her back and tinge with an upsurge of blood and swelling. I went too far, and I know. “I’m sorry.” The throbbing in my cock is painfully disorienting. “I’m sorry.”
With a glowing gaze, Amber lures, “You want to fuck?”
“No. I can’t do that,” I mutter, gathering my things as the losses blur into one pure rotating globule—Raine, Anna, and Iris. “I’m sorry I have to get home to my girlfriend.”
Her mouth gapes open with a shocking disillusionment. “You what?”
“I have a girlfriend,” I firmly reiterate. “I have to go home.”
“What the hell was this?”
“Punishment, Stardust.”
No longer would I take care of everyone.
I must take care of myself.
I can’t ever do what I did tonight again.
When I walk into the darkened house to see Emily crying on the sofa, I can’t stop myself as I drop the flowers and mushrooms on the table. The moon reflects her mascara tear stains dried hours ago. I say nothing, kicking off my shoes and stripping from my jacket and shirt. I move quickly to straddle over her, mostly because I’m not in the mood for a chase.
Keeping her pinned beneath my weight, I place my hands on either cheek and pull her to kiss me. I don’t take no for an answer because I know regardless of the shit I pull; she wants this to work. She needs me in her life because she doesn’t like it without me.
My mouth mauls hers, taking and claiming, as I pull off her shirt and tear her bra from her breasts. They’re small and perky—perfect for my palms. I can hold the fullness and still thumb at her nipple. She gasps and I lower to suckle one in my mouth while teasing the other. I can amuse myself with tits for hours on end. I love the smell, feel, and taste of the soft, dainty flesh. I get rock hard if boobs are in play. Rack and eyes are my biggest weaknesses, and women who know me, routinely exploit this to their amusement.
All is fair in love and war.
“I’m fucking you now.”
Whispering against my lip, she says, “Please, Sal…”
Not a word is spoken about my disappearance as I slide her beneath me on the sofa. My fingers dip between her legs to find her soaking and ready for my imminent thrust. I tug my zipper down and sail into her flooded channel. We’re fucking hard as her hands slip under the back of my jeans and grab my ass. I feel her fingers clench as she arches up beneath me.
“Sit up…on the sofa…I want to ride you…” I get up to remove my jeans. “Leave them…please.”
I do as Emily asks because I want to see where she is going with this. Standing by the coffee table, she bites her lip, staring at me. “You’re fucking hot…and you’re mine. No more vanishing acts. I understand who and what you are, but you don’t get to be that guy, because every time you’re gone longer than you’re supposed to be, I think you’re either dead or cheating on me. Don’t do that to me again.”
I give her a seductive glare. “Are you riding my cock or should I stroke it off while you stand there?”
She grins, knowing full well I’ll do it.
“Depends, are you doing more of those manhandling moves to my boobs?”
Manhandling moves?
“I don’t have to.”
“Then never mind, jerk it off,” she teases, giggling.
“Get over here and get on my dick, Em.”
Easing my hands around her bare ass, I close my eyes and moan as she slides on slow. Her tempered pace and the angle are intense as I swoop my mouth over one nipple again. I don’t move, letting her have her way with me. I’ll come regardless of what she does, but I want to feel her orgasm on me.
She’s painstakingly bouncing…bouncing…bouncing…with great strides as her fingers grip the back of the sofa, and she leans back in my hands.
“I’m going to come, Lucas,” she mumbles, moving faster.
“Jesus, don’t stop, baby,” I encourage, turned on more than I ever have been with her. Ramming my hips up hard, I demand, “Give it to me.”
Closing her eyes, she cries out so beautifully as I spew deep inside of her puddle. She blinks at me. “What the hell, Nero? You been holding out on me?”
“Me?” I say, knowing how worked up I was from the session. “Nevah!”
A month later, Emily and I are at the cabin the day after Christmas. We’ve been here for six days. We celebrated Christmas with my parents. Deacon and Cat were there but left when we did because she wanted to go to Texas for the New Year’s Eve Bondage
and Bash at Juliet.
I try not to think about it.
Because I will forever miss it.
I’m out moving wood from the shed to the porch for the fire we’ve had going almost continuously. The snow piles high with record falls. It just keeps coming…the torrential storm of white turning blue until it finds clarity.
Après nous le déluge.
After us, the deluge.
From the kitchen, Emily waves and I catch the glitter of the diamond engagement ring I put on her finger on Christmas Eve at La Chapelle before midnight mass. The entire family celebrated as I made a giant pot of cacio e pepe and we drank wine until four. My parents are thrilled. Cat is concerned. And only Deacon knows the truth.
I still can’t say those three little words.
But we’ve progressed to love you.
I’ve talked at length with my father. He claims to have no idea who took Anna or Iris or why. I call bullshit, but I’m playing the game because Dom insists it is for the best.
I cannot question; I must trust.
I’ve consulted with Cristos who also maintains to know nothing.
I fall into the snow near the shed and stare up to the gray clouds overhead. More snow is on the way, and I cannot help but reminisce about the days gone by.
Nights in New Orleans triumphantly dash through my mental photos, where star jasmine and wild honeysuckle filled the humid air with a thick stench of sensual sex, and I believed in the sanctity of our holy trinity.
Between their skin, I found a balance I had never known. I’ve lost Iris, but in a way, I’ve lost Deacon, too. And it must be okay because I’m misplaced in our nightmare as well.
We aren’t the same.
We may never recover because we can’t retrace our steps and backtrack. The thick blizzard has covered our path; the fire has melted the snow, and the water has flooded the journey. We’re caught in the cascade of roaring rapids, each in our life raft, as we fight and struggle to stay afloat.
I’m losing the ground Anna warned me about. I can feel the erosion of earth, slipping out from under me, and I’m scared of the drain opening like a giant sinkhole only to send my tortured soul plummeting into the abyss.
I want to run; I need to hide.
I’m an assassin, and the white is too bright. I long for a sanctuary to vent my emotions, but that only comes if I succumb to the demons within. Until then I pressurize like a volcano, building steam and shooting up hot cinders that one day will turn to ash. I never once consider the ravaging firestorm or the intensity of the damage…because I can survive in its wrath.
And Iris will burn.
In the freezing snow, I see the hurricane, whirling in the distance and coming onto the shore. More rain. More wetness. Moist dampness to sheath our layers as they become new skin. I fear we’ll all die in the flood. I must pull back the layers, but the waters only rise.
And I will drown.
“That’s it,” I mutter, ripping off my gloves and standing up. I’m covered in frosty snow as I step into the shed. I blow warm air onto my hands as they uncontrollably shake from the cold. I take out my phone and say, “Call Hot Pants.”
“God, please answer.” It rings and rings. “Answer the phone goddammit.”
“Happy New Year, Sallykins!” she cheers, giggling. “Blessed be in 2016.”
“Georgia,” I rudely interrupt, halting her ongoing well wishes. “I need you.”
“Yes, my Italian snow bunny?”
Forming my hypothesis, I speak the words to haunt my soul with regret. “They aren’t locations.”
“Hold on, I have to put my festive spiked punch down and turn off the party,” she says as I hear the celebration on the television cease. “What are you talking about?”
“There are no USB drives because there are no locs,” I implore as my mind flutters like a weathervane in a dust storm.
“Then what are all these things…”
I mutter. “They’re fucking crypto codes.”
“To what?”
“I don’t know,” I mutter, lowering down to the ground. “But that is what they are.”
She pauses with speculation. “How do you know?”
Gripping my hair, I rock back and forth, staying crouched. “Because they’re all in the mizu…”
“What?” I hear her nails typing at an insane rate. “Oh, my fucking God …they’re all in the water.”
“Send them to my fax. Each one on a line. I need to cut it up and play with it.”
“Holy hell…” she mutters in disbelief. “How did you?”
“I am the red hot fire; she is the calming water.”
“Sal, there are forty-six of them,” she points out. “If this is a crypto code, where in the world are the USB drives?”
Tears trickle down my cheeks because I should’ve figured it all out sooner. “They’re in Iris…”
She gasps. “What?”
“The uploads are programmed into her head.”
“Holy fuck!”
“Kaci told me she was the key, but Iris is also the code. And I’ve got the passwords.” I hear a text message from Em. “Someone is here, Georgia. I got to go.”
“Call me back.”
I trudge back to the house to see the TEXAS license plates on the car. Emily is standing on the porch as I stop and stare at the woman in the red coat.
“I didn’t do it!” she raises her hands like I would even bother with an arrest.
Anger swells in my muscles as I rush forward and back her against the wall of the cabin. “Tell me one goddamned reason I shouldn’t kill you right fucking now, Mierne!”
“Because I know where she was,” she desperately pleads, grasping her hands to my faint chokehold. “Please, hear me out.”
“My patience is a very short fucking wick,” I reply as Emily stays in the doorway. “You have ten minutes to explain yourself. And then I will kill you with my bare hands.”
“I understand, Salvatore.”
Taking off my ski jacket, I hand it to Emily. “Can I take your coat?”
“She isn’t staying or she’ll leave in a body bag,” I warn.
With a nod, Emily blinks.
She’s getting used to my antics.
“There was nothing I could do about any of it. I went to see you at Wiggs, and I immediately went to type up the notes from our conversation into your file. Jack hacked into my computer and sent those notes along with his recommendation to Dr. Looper. Someone had to pay him to do it.”
The devil, that’s who.
“Fine,” I say, knowing I’m clean, sober, and very clear-headed. “Where the fuck is Iris?”
“Jack must have convinced them to go somewhere with him in his car. I tried texting, and he never responded. I checked his GPS on the phone, and it was turned off, so I logged in with my remote access to the Sibyl system and saw he was Arkansas.”
“Stanis,” I roar, clenching my fists. “He sold my girl to fucking Stanis.”
Emily turns away, knowing how much I hurt. I have a dead wife, and the love of my life was abducted. I’m trying to heal, but my pain is like a virus, spreading rapidly throughout my system.
“I would like to tell you that your father isn’t involved, but I kept following the dot to Boston.”
“That’s where he got the money for Cristos!”
“I wouldn’t blame you if you killed me,” Mierne says, blinking at me. “I know I did plenty of things wrong, but I also know, you’ve been looking for the rat at Sibyl. Do you have a tracker in her?”
“It was removed,” I inform, unable to comprehend the magnitude of transgressions against us. “You need to go. Thank you for coming.”
“Yes,” she says, walking towards the door. “Of course.”
Taking a deep breath, I close my eyes and give her a blow to the back of the head. She slumps to the ground. “Did you just kill her?”
“No, just pushed the power button on her cerebrum.”
I smirk.
> 71
No Such Thing As Too Much Love
Fifteen Months Later
Spring 2017
Staring out the window of my new downtown office at Raniero Enterprises, I’m distracted by the view of our emerging spring. Everything is alive and new, rebirthing not by choice, but programming. It’s time to wake up with the seasonal clock.
“Mr. Raniero, you have a call on line four from Ms. Ford,” Amber informs on the intercom. She’s serving time as my secretary. I frequently allow Deacon to discipline her while I watch and never consent to either of us fucking her. I’m a cruel son-of-a-bitch when I want to be.
I am not a good guy.
But I’m steadfast.
“Shall I put her through?” she asks as I spot the wedding invitation to Ronnie and Jamichael’s wedding. They’re having a baby. I guess vavavooming is good.
“Did you clear my schedule for Friday?” I ask, ripping off my hand splints and picking at my jeans. My indignation in wearing suits is a sore spot for Mama, but I won’t do it unless we’re doing some important thing. “Emily and I are visiting Nico, Serene, and Kade on Cristos’ yacht.”
“Yes, Sir!”
“Good girl,” I praise, flicking my brow. “Put her through.” Refusing to speak to certain vital people on the speakerphone, I pick up the receiver.
“Anna! How are you doing?”
I hear the birds chattering in the background at my beloved Juliet. I miss Texas. I miss Sugargrove. I miss Juliet. And I miss my little butterfly.
“I’m doing wonderfully!” she excitedly boasts as I stare at the stolen owl from Ronnie’s office. I still don’t know much about owls, but as it turns out, I don’t need to. The owl knows plenty about me. “Would you be interested in coming for graduation, we could use a commencement speaker?”
I roll my eyes, shaking the bands on my wrist to line them all up with their fasteners down. I touch the red one from Kevyn Abo and remember. “I’ll have to think about it. I haven’t been back…”
Famous Last Words (a Tomb of Ashen Tears Book 2) Page 58